Love Activisits gather to read out their demands as part of their occupation of the old bank building in Liverpool.
Photograph: David Colbran/Demotix/Corbis

Activists who have occupied Liverpool’s old Bank of England building to provide shelter for the city’s homeless people say they are under siege by police and claim they are being refused delivery of food and water.

Bailiffs had set up fences around the central Liverpool building where anti-austerity Love Activists are staging an occupation after being served with eviction notices on Tuesday.

Police had used a dispersal order to clear supporters away from the building and, the activists said, were now refusing to allow supplies to be taken into the building.

Merseyside police disputed the accusation, saying the activists had been offered bottles of water, which they had declined. Activists had been told they would not be arrested if they left the building peacefully, the force said. A spokeswoman said the police were acting proportionately, and that there were no plans to forcibly evict the activists at the moment.

One of the occupiers, Juliette Edgar, told the Guardian by phone from inside the building that she and her companions were refusing to leave. “We have barricaded all the doors and entrances,” she said. “This is a former Bank of England building, it’s very secure. There are vaults in here.”

Activists claimed police were halting deliveries of supplies even seizing a packet of lozenges a supporter had tried to throw in for one occupier coming down with a cold.

The Love Activists moved into the unoccupied building in the middle of April to set up a support centre for Liverpool’s homeless people, incorporating places to sleep, an advice centre and a street kitchen.

But last Tuesday, 10 days into the occupation, they were served with a court order demanding that they leave the building. A dispersal order was approved on Thursday and they were placed under 24-hour police guard. Dispersal orders give police the power to ask people to leave a defined area. Any person who refuses such a request can be arrested.

Edgar said she believed there were six arrests on Thursday night as police pushed supporters away from the building, including one of a homeless person supporting the group, and another one that appeared to be violent. She claimed officers grabbed a woman by the throat and dragged her away.

“They just grabbed this woman as she was packing up the homeless kitchen which we had set up on the steps. It was really violent and it was in view of hundreds of people.”

They resisted eviction on Friday morning, but now, with temporary metal fencing blocking access to the building, Edgar said she and her group were effectively besieged by police trying to starve them out.

“This dispersal zone is about not allowing people to support us, and they are refusing us food and water by our system, which is a pulley and bag,” Edgar said.

Officers had offered them water but only if they opened a door, she said, but added: “We don’t want anything from the police.” The group still had water from the mains supply to the building, although they were wary of drinking it and had been relying on dwindling supplies of bottled water.

The police spokeswoman disputed the suggestion that officers were trying to starve the protesters out, saying one who had left earlier in the week had said there was enough food inside the building to last a month.

“Those inside the building are now in breach of an interim possession order which was issued earlier this week and they are committing an offence,” she said.

“We have tried to work with the protestors to facilitate peaceful protest, and have also given them the option to leave the building and not face charges, even though they are in breach of the possession order and have committed damage to a grade-one-listed building – damage to the door and graffiti on the walls.

“Those protesting say there are inadequate services for the homeless and set up a facility initially for homeless people within the building. A number of the homeless people have now left, and those that remain have been offered accommodation by the local authority.”

Since the police blockade began, many homeless people had been sleeping close to and outside the building in solidarity with the occupiers, Edgar said.

She had heard from one man that hard-pressed service providers were advising homeless people to take advantage of the group’s services, adding that many had come to them for help.

“There’s a lot of homeless people living in a range of circumstances. Many of them are living in hostels which are dangerous and many of them were living on the streets,” she said.

“We have had a lot of people staying in here with different needs. Homeless people have a lot of issues, including addiction issues and benefits issues.”

Edgar would not say how many people were in the building. She did say all the homeless people had left and those remained were all activists. She was the oldest, at 51, while the youngest was an 18-year-old woman.